Poppy cultivation has increased by 32% since the return of the Taliban

Despite the bans, the Taliban, who took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, are unable to curb opium poppy cultivation. This has indeed increased by 32% over one year in the country, according to a report published on Tuesday by the UN.

They are “trapped in the illicit opiate economy”, notes the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), who calls on the international community to “step up the response”. This crop “now reaches 233,000 hectares”, warns the Office, noting that opium prices “have soared” since the Taliban banned the planting of the flower in April 2022.

Galloping inflation

This year’s crop was largely exempt from the decree. Afghan farmers must now decide in early November whether to plant opium poppy for next year without knowing whether authorities will enforce the ban, says the body based in Vienna, Austria.

Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest producer of poppy, from which opium and heroin are extracted, and “farmers’ income from the sale of opium has tripled” in one year, according to the UNODC. Rising from 430 million euros in 2021 to 1.4 billion euros in 2022, it is the “most profitable recorded for years” and represents 29% of the country’s total agricultural value, compared to 9% a year earlier. . However, the increase in income did not necessarily translate into purchasing power, as inflation soared over the same period, with food prices increasing by an average of 35%.

Seizures of opiates in countries bordering Afghanistan indicate that Afghan opium and heroin trafficking has not ceased. Between 80% and 90% of the heroin and opium in the world comes from Afghanistan, mainly from the south-west of the country, according to the UN.

A financial windfall during the guerrillas

The cultivation of the flower was briefly prohibited in 2000 by the Taliban, a few months before the fundamentalist regime was overthrown by the international coalition in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. During their twenty years of guerrilla warfare against foreign forces, the Taliban heavily taxed poppy growers in areas under their control, making the crop an important source of income for them.

During their presence in Afghanistan, the United States and its NATO allies tried to encourage farmers to produce wheat or saffron. Initiatives that failed, while the Taliban controlled the main poppy production areas.